Sacred Heart

She unbuttons his coat down to his belt and peels it back from his uneven shoulders like the petals of a rose; his keen blue eyes are on her face, but in this light they hardly have any color, chips of ice. He used to blush easily once but there’s hardly any color in his face now at all. He looks very serious.

“And you’ll be comfortable? In front of everyone?”

“They’ll take steps to preserve your modesty, Anne, if you’re worried about that.” He doesn’t sound teasing, he sounds perfectly solicitous. His hand brushes up the curls on the back of her neck, and her whole body responds keenly, resonance like an obscure instrument. “You’ll have your back to the crowd, when they open your dress for the priest; you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Anne has pictured the ceremony so many times – a thousand times, before she ever realized it was her crowning she dreamed of, before the coronation furs were pulled from her shoulders, before Elizabeth sat there unbearably haughty at her husband’s side. She had scarcely thought of who the king might be – shamefully it hadn’t mattered, she hadn’t even thought of Richard except in the most abstract of ways, it hadn’t been about the king at all. It had been about the pomp, the importance, the signs of her good fortune. Now, she thinks, she wouldn’t mind if everyone there saw her. If all of England saw her, with the light of heaven on her face and a vow on her lips and Richard’s hand in hers. They could strip her naked to the waist like Phryne and she wouldn’t care. This will be her triumph, finally queen and finally his in one act. Let the whole world see. Let God watch them now. Anne has had her fill of secret assignations.

She wants to be seen. She wants to be known for who she is, not the dull shadow of an older sister and the drab offspring of a masterful father – and he is like a master to her even now, his orders on her heart for ever. But they couldn’t possibly apply to a queen, could they? Elizabeth wore her crown so proudly that it was difficult to believe she’d ever been obedient to anyone. Perhaps they two can yet be their own masters, after all.

Her nipples have hardened in the room’s chill and Richard teasingly plucks at one between his fingers as he palms her little breast. It sends a sort of thrill through her, true, but not ardor. She feels herself becoming consecrated.

She presses her mouth to his forehead, marks his brow and his nose and his lips and his chin, trailing kisses like oil. Her hand creeps up the slope of his shoulder, the bad one – she’s seen it worsen as they’ve grown, seen how it hurts him – and he catches her over backwards, in a kiss not pitying and not very chaste either.

He kisses her throat, kisses down deep between her breasts and makes her gasp. He calls her beautiful, admires her breasts and her skin and the startling pinkness of her bitten flesh. But Anne is imagining the weight of those furs on her shoulders, and she sinks down under the thrill of a blessing on her skin.